Patients' accuse doctors of "supreme arrogance" after changes to appointment system

Patients who use the Tudor House Practice have criticised the new appointment system

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An appointments system designed to make it easier to see a doctor has angered long-standing patients at a GP surgery.

A group of 27 patients has written a furious letter to Tudor House practice, accusing doctors of “supreme arrogance”.

In the unsigned letter, they claim staff at the 100-year old surgery “don't care a hoot” and have brought in the telephone triage system to “make life simpler and easier for doctors.”

In the letter of complaint, the patients write: “Sometimes patients, especially in the latter years of life like ourselves, need to sit and talk to a doctor rather than a cold, empty, faceless phone conversation.

“What supreme arrogance the doctors now display by assuming they can accurately diagnose patients’ problems, and give the required treatment over the phone, without even seeing the person and talking to them in any depth.”

But practice manager Jenny Partridge said Patient Access, which allows doctors to assess the urgency of symptoms before allocating appointments, was introduced in April as patients were having to wait two weeks to be seen.

Daytime appointments were taken up with routine consultations with the elderly or with children suffering from minor coughs and colds while the most unwell patients could not be seen until the end of surgery.

Now more than 90 per cent of patients are seen on the same day they call.

Mrs Partridge said: “We surveyed patients in the months after we brought in the system and, of those who had used it, we had an 80 per cent approval.

“Doctors are working harder, now treating 60 patients a day compared with 30 a day under the old system.”

Mrs Partridge said elderly patients who insisted on seeing their doctor for routine tests, such as blood pressure checks, could instead see a nurse.

Parents often called in the morning stating their child was seriously ill, only for doctors to discover the child had in fact been sent to school that day.

The row is an indication of the changes facing surgeries in Wokingham as the population increases and ages.

The 23,000-patient practice at Tudor House Surgery and Rectory Road Medical Centre has six per cent more patients aged 65 and over than the national average.

The practice, which moves from its Grade II listed building in Broad Street to Rose Street next year, has been told it must take another 8,000 patients over the next 10 years.

Christine Holland, the chairman of the surgery’s virtual patient group, was at a flu clinic at Tudor House on Saturday where more than 1,300 people were vaccinated. She said: “The majority of patients were entirely happy with the new system and did not have any objections, which is as reflected in the practice’s survey. The minority had comments which were passed on to the surgery.”

A letter from Dr Husein Hafizji, one of the surgery’s lead GPs, will soon go out to patients further explaining the new system.

Dr Hafizji will also speak at a conference next month about the Patient Access system, which is expected to be adopted by GPs across Berkshire.